New Yorkers are reportedly the most anxious about retirement in the U.S., because duh
New York: the city that never sleeps—partially because its residents are up all night worrying about retirement.
A new study by Gold IRA Custodians reveals that New Yorkers top the list for retirement anxiety, with a sky-high score of 81.08. That's right: More than any other state, New Yorkers are fretting over their golden years, thanks to a perfect storm of high living costs, uneven savings and a deeply embedded culture of financial angst.
The study pulled data from all 50 states, analyzing everything from average retirement savings to elderly poverty rates and Google search trends for phrases like 'will I ever be able to retire.' The result is a revealing snapshot of where retirement nerves are most frayed—and surprise, surprise, the Empire State came out on top.
Even with average household retirement savings hovering around $382,000, New York's cost of living, which is 23-percent higher than the national average, eats away at those nest eggs. Add to that the 16.9-percent of New Yorkers aged 55+ who have no retirement savings and a sobering 14.3-percent elderly poverty rate, and you've got a city that's panicked, not just anxious.
'New York exemplifies how high living costs can undermine even solid savings,' Tim Schmidt, founder of Gold IRA Custodians, said. 'When your daily expenses are 23-percent above the national average, the same retirement nest egg simply doesn't stretch as far.'
Hawaii and Rhode Island round out the top three most anxious states, largely due to similar pressures from sky-high prices and shaky financial preparedness. On the flip side, Iowa claims the lowest anxiety score in the country (49.35), combining strong savings habits with a cost of living that doesn't make your wallet scream.
The lesson? Where you live plays a massive role in how confident—or terrified—you feel about retirement. '[It] isn't simply about how much money people have saved,' Schmidt explained. 'Rather, it's about whether those savings can sustain their lifestyle in their specific location.'
Until the L train starts accepting 401(k) contributions or rent drops below 'you've got to be kidding,' don't expect New Yorkers to chill about retirement anytime soon.
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Reuters
5 hours ago
- Reuters
Britain says Google's online-ad commitments no longer needed
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BBC News
6 hours ago
- BBC News
Is Google about to destroy the web?
Google says a new AI tool on its search engine will rejuvenate the internet. Others predict an apocalypse for websites. One thing is clear: the current chapter of online history is careening towards its end. Welcome to the "machine web". The web is built on a simple bargain – websites let search engines like Google slurp up their content, free of charge, and Google Search sends people to websites in exchange, where they buy things and look at adverts. That's how most sites make money. An estimated 68% of internet activity starts on search engines and about 90% of searches happen on Google. If the internet is a garden, Google is the Sun that lets the flowers grow. This arrangement held strong for decades, but a seemingly minor change has some convinced that the system is crumbling. You'll soon see a new AI tool on Google Search. You may find it very useful. But if critics' predictions come true, it will also have seismic consequences for the internet. They paint a picture where quality information could grow scarcer online and large numbers of people might lose their jobs. Optimists say instead this could improve the web's business model and expand opportunities to find great content. But, for better or worse, your digital experiences may never be the same again. On 20 May 2025, Google's chief executive Sundar Pichai walked on stage at the company's annual developer conference. It's been a year since the launch of AI Overviews, the AI-generated responses you've probably seen at the top of Google Search results. Now, Pichai said, Google is going further. "For those who want an end-to-end AI Search experience, we are introducing an all-new AI Mode," he said. "It's a total reimagining of Search." You might be sceptical after years of AI hype, but this, for once, is the real deal. People use Google Search five trillion times a year – it defines the shape of the internet. AI Mode is a radical departure. Unlike AI Overviews, AI Mode replaces traditional search results altogether. Instead, a chatbot effectively creates a miniature article to answer your question. As you read this, AI Mode is rolling out to users in the US, appearing as a button on the search engine and the company's app. It's optional for now, but Google's head of Search, Liz Reid, said it plainly when launching the tool: "This is the future of Google Search." Here's the problem critics foresee – AI Overviews already sends much less traffic to the rest of the internet, and many fear AI Mode could supercharge that trend. If this comes to pass, it could crush the business model that's fuelled the digital content you've enjoyed for almost 30 years. "If Google makes AI Mode the default in its current form, it's going to have a devastating impact on the internet," says Lily Ray, vice president of search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy and research at the marketing agency Amsive. "It will severely cut into the main source of revenue for most publishers and it will disincentivise content creators who rely on organic search traffic, which is millions of websites, maybe more. Google holds all the power." Google says these concerns are overblown. In fact, the company believes AI Mode will make the web healthier and more useful. "Every day, we send billions of clicks to websites, and connecting people to the web continues to be a priority," a Google spokesperson says. "New experiences like AI Overviews and AI Mode enhance Search and expand the types of questions people can ask, which creates new opportunities for content to be discovered." But Google and its critics agree on one thing: the internet is about to look very, very different. The next year or so will likely mark the end of an era online. The only question is what our world will look like when the dust settles. The publisher's lament It's important to note that the internet isn't going anywhere. Social media platforms are doing better than ever. Some popular sites with paywalls are thriving. What is about to change is how people find and discover information online. It's the "open web" that some fear is at risk – the ecosystem of freely accessible independent websites, where people and businesses, often called "publishers", share information, images and video. We've heard this before, however. A Wired magazine cover declared "The web is dead" in 2010, yet here we are. Smartphones, apps and social media have all sparked doomsday predictions about the World Wide Web. But following Google's announcement in May, the BBC spoke to over a dozen experts who say AI Mode poses an unprecedented threat to the digital economy. "I think 'extinction' is too strong of a word for what's going to happen to websites," says Barry Adams, founder of the SEO firm Polemic Digital. "'Decimation' is the right word." Google disagrees. In fact, the company tells the BBC that AI Overviews have been good for the web, and AI Mode will be no different. Google insists these features send users to "a greater diversity of websites" and the traffic is "higher quality" because people spend more time on the links they click. However, the company hasn't provided data to back up these claims. Google has an AI guide for curious publishers, but it hasn't give websites a clear picture of how AI Overviews affect them. Google did not respond to questions on this point. And what Google doesn't deny, at least not outright, is that these AI tools reduce the total amount traffic that Search sends out to the web. Critics say it's simple – AI Overviews and AI Mode both include links to sources, but if AI gives you the answer you're looking for, why would you bother to click? Data seems to support that logic. (Don't believe me? Ask Google's AI.) Numerous analyses have found that AI Overviews appear to cut the amount of traffic Google sends to websites – known as the "click-through rate" – by between 30% and 70%, depending on what people are searching for. Analyses have also found that some 60% of Google searches are now "zero-click", ending without the user visiting a single link. Experts believe that some version of AI Mode will soon become the default, and that would supercharge the effects AI has on traffic because it completely does away with the traditional list of links. "I expect that the amount of clicks that go from Google's AI Mode to the web will be about half, and that's in the optimistic scenario," says Adams. "I think a lot of users will just be happy with what the AI gives them. It could be the difference between having a viable publishing business and going bankrupt. For a lot of publishers, it will be that dramatic." This isn't just about a bunch of bloggers losing their jobs. It will also change how users themselves interact with the web and how they find information. "The web is all these communities at the tip of your fingers and that could disappear," says Gisele Navarro, managing editor of HouseFresh, a site that reviews air quality products. Navarro is an advocate for websites that feel sidelined by Google and she argues the sources of information users are able to find could become far less diverse. "It's like asking a librarian for book, but they just tell you about the book instead," she says. "This feeling of the web being a big library for all of us, I think that is gone." A Google spokesperson says predictions and analyses like these are unsound. The company says sites can lose traffic for a variety of reasons, and studies addressing these issues often use skewed data and flawed methodology. "From our point of view, the web is thriving," Nick Fox, Google's senior vice president of knowledge and information, said on a recent podcast. "There's probably no company that cares more about the health and the future of the web than Google." In fact, Fox said the amount of content on the web has grown by 45% in the last two years, and that's excluding spam. "We see this in the data," he said. "People are still very actively clicking through to the web." Despite those reassurances, some websites are struggling with the arrival of AI-powered chatbots and search. Last year, HouseFresh was one of countless small online businesses that said it was hit by updates to Google's algorithms that often rerouted traffic to big-name brands. Now, Navarro says, AI is compounding the damage. "A few weeks ago, we noticed a spike," Navarro says. Impressions, the number of times HouseFresh appears on Google Search, are trending upwards. "But at the same time, clicks are trending down. So Google is showing our links more often, but no one clicks. It correlates with AI Overviews." According to the data analysis firm BrightEdge, AI Overviews have caused impressions to rise 49% across the web, but clicks have fallen 30% because people just get their answers from the AI. "Google wrote the rules, they created the game and they rewarded the players," Navarro says. "Now they're turning around and saying, 'That's my infrastructure, the web just happens to live in it.' I think it's going to destroy the open web as we know it, for sure. It probably already has." Say hello to the machine web The greatest impact of AI Mode will be on the experience you have online every day. We may, some believe, be at the dawn of a new paradigm, a future you might call the "machine web". One where websites are built for AI to read rather than for humans, and reading summaries by chatbots becomes a primary way we consume information. Demis Hassabis, head of Google DeepMind, the company's AI research lab, said in a recent interview that he believes publishers will want to feed their content directly to AI models to facilitate this and some may not bother putting that information on websites for human beings to read. "I think things will be pretty different in a few years," he said. It would be a world with the answers always conveniently on tap. But it could also bring an end to some of those things that have made the open web so popular in the first place – the opportunity to fall down online rabbit holes, to chance upon something delightful or to find something new. In an interview with the podcast Decoder, Pichai said that in the end, it will come down to what users prefer. Matthew Prince, chief executive of Cloudflare, which provides network services for nearly a fifth of all websites, foresees a bigger problem. "Robots don't click on ads," he says. If AI becomes the audience, how do creators get paid? One possibility is direct compensation. The New York Times is licensing content to Amazon for its AI. Google pays Reddit $60m (£44m) a year to train AI on user data. Dozens of giant publishers and media conglomerates have reportedly signed similar deals with OpenAI and others. But so far, only massive websites with lots of data are pulling in these deals. "I don't think that paying for content like this is a model that will work at the scale necessary to sustain the web," says Tom Critchlow, executive vice president at advertising technology firm Raptive. "It's difficult to see how that would work as a replacement for the decline in clicks." If making money on the web gets harder, Adams and others expect there will also be a mass exodus to social media. For many, like Navarro, that's already happening. HouseFresh has pivoted to YouTube. But Navarro says the whims of social media algorithms are even more fickle, and the platforms force creators to sacrifice depth and detail in favour of showmanship. "There's no incentive to build the same high-quality content," Navarro says. "Everything becomes about monetisation and transition, and it forces you to inform less and sell more." Across the board, Navarro says the loss of autonomy publishers had on the web means lower quality content for you as the audience. There are other search engines people could try instead, of course, although they too are integrating AI into their search tools – Microsoft, for example, has been building AI into its Bing search engine. But Google's smaller competitors have so little market share it's difficult to see them making a dent in the economy – and many are adding their own AI tools. The machine web, if that is where things are going, may be more closed, less diverse and in a real sense, flatter for the people who spend their time online. But some observers aren't panicking. "I'm not worried in the sense that this is all an evolution," says Dame Wendy Hall, a computer science professor at University of Southampton and one of the early pioneers who designed the architecture that was a forerunner of the World Wide Web in the 1980s. "AI is now coming into the equation and it's going to change all the dynamics. I wouldn't want to say exactly what's going to happen," she says. "The web is still there and it's still open. If Google goes this way, some bright spark will come up with a new way of making money. "Something will happen. But I guess for many people along the way, it will be too late." What users want There is little doubt AI Mode is an impressive piece of technology. It deploys a "fan out method" where the AI breaks your question into subtopics and does multiple searches simultaneously. Google says this lets AI Mode recommends more diverse sources, produce deeper answers to more complex queries, dives deeper – and you have the ability to ask follow-up questions. According to Google, reactions to AI Overviews suggest AI Mode will be extremely popular. "As people use AI Overviews, we see they are happier with their results, and they search more often," Pichai said at Google's developer conference. "It's one of the most successful launches in search in the past decade." In other words, Google says this makes Search better and it's what users want. But that's no justification, says Danielle Coffey, president of News/Media Alliance, a trade group representing more than 2,200 journalism and media outlets. (The BBC is a member of the News/Media Alliance.) "This is the definition of theft. The AI answers are a substitute for the original product. They're making money on our content and we get nothing in return," Coffey says. "It's not Google's place to make this business decision on behalf of the people who are producing the goods being sold." The problem, Coffey and others say, is publishers have no choice. Internal documents released in a court case show Google chose to "silently update" its rules, so participating in Google Search means websites automatically give their permission to use content for AI. Publishers can opt-out – but only if they opt-out of search results altogether. A Google spokesperson says these documents show early discussions that don't reflect the company's final decision-making process, and publishers have always controlled whether their content is available on Google. The spokesperson says Google offers controls that let website owners choose to keep their content out of responses from AI Mode and AI Overviews. "The AI answers are a substitute for the original product," says Coffey. "I don't see that being a business proposition that we would ever willingly opt into." Over the past year, US courts have found Google operates not one but two illegal monopolies in the search engine and digital advertising businesses. The courts are still determining the consequences, and there's a real possibility of a breakup that could deal a serious blow to Google's control of the web. Google says it disagrees with the courts' decisions and plans to appeal. The company argues it faces immense competition, and proposals to break up the company would be worse for consumers and slow innovation. But Google's grip may already be loosening, in small ways. During these trials, Apple executive Eddy Cue said Google searches in Safari have fallen for the first time in 22 years, probably because people are using AI chatbots instead. Google issued a statement arguing the company continues to see overall query growth, including from Apple devices. A recent survey found nearly 72% of Americans sometimes use AI tools such as ChatGPT in place of search engines. "I think you learn more when you do the searching yourself," says Mike King, founder of SEO agency iPullRank. "But a lot of people feel they don't need all that." But AI may come with significant costs. "It's going to create more filter bubbles, because now Google is interpreting that information rather than giving it to you," King says. Research on AI chatbots suggests they have a tendency to act as echo chambers. "The info you expect is going to be reinforced," King says. Then, of course, there are fundamental concerns about the quality of AI answers. Some research suggests AI hallucinations are getting worse as their technical abilities improve. Even Sundar Pichai said on a podcast interview that hallucinations are "an inherent feature" of the technology – though Google is using its traditional search methods to ground AI responses, and the company says accuracy is improving. Google tells the BBC the vast majority of AI search responses are factual, and their accuracy is on par with other Search features. Still, early slip ups – like the times when Google's AI Overviews told people to eat rocks and add glue to pizza recipes – linger in the public consciousness. Google jumps to fix errors, but on a recent Thursday in 2025, one year into AI Overviews, the AI said it wasn't Thursday and it wasn't 2025. My mistake. Research suggests that AI could even produce an echo-chamber effect with the very misinformation it hallucinates – something computer scientists have coined "chat chambers". A Google spokesperson says its AI is designed to match your interests without limiting what you find on the web. While the spectre of the machine web is disquieting for many who build and depend on the internet, Google paints a different, vibrant picture. "You will see us five years from now sending a lot of traffic out to the web. I think that's the product direction we are committed to," Pichai told Decoder. Google tells the BBC its vision is one where AI enhances search, builds on the types of questions users can ask, and ultimately expands opportunities to create and discover content, albeit in potentially different ways. "I'm not going to predict what is going to happen, because, of course, the future is multifactorial," says Cory Doctorow, a longtime technology advocate and writer of the upcoming book Enshittification about the decay of online platforms. "But, if I were still someone who valued Google as a way to find information or to have my information found, I'd be really worried about this." But he also feels it could be a moment for internet users to push for the changes they want to see. "It's a crisis we shouldn't let go to waste," says Doctorow. "Google's about to do something that's going to make people really angry. My first thought is 'Okay, great. What can we do to capitalise on that anger?' It's a chance to build a coalition." More like this:• The hidden world beneath the shadows of YouTube's algorithm• The Ghosts of India's TikTok• The people stuck using ancient Windows computers Some aren't waiting for Google's vision to materialise or for regulators to act. Matthew Prince of Cloudflare is championing direct intervention. His plan is to have Cloudflare and a consortium of publishers of all sizes collectively block AI crawlers unless tech companies pay for the content. It's an audacious bid to "reset the norms of what's allowed online" and force Silicon Valley to negotiate for the data that fuels their models. (Google did not respond to questions about this proposal.) "My very optimistic version," Prince says, "is one where humans get content for free and bots have to pay a tonne for it." Navarro says it's hard not to feel nostalgic for what might be lost, even if something new and great might come in its place. "That web is what happens when a bunch of people connect on the topics they care about," she says, reminiscing about a Spanish language fan site she created as a child for the rock band Queen. "I went searching for Queen but there wasn't a lot of content about the band at the time in Spanish. So I went and started making it, adding something to the web when I was 10 years old because I felt I could just do that. "I want to believe that this isn't the end." * Thomas Germain is a senior technology journalist for the BBC. He's covered AI, privacy and the furthest reaches of internet culture for the better part of a decade. You can find him on X and TikTok @thomasgermain. -- For more technology news and insights, sign up to our Tech Decoded newsletter, while The Essential List delivers a handpicked selection of features and insights to your inbox twice a week. For more science, technology, environment and health stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
Reuters
8 hours ago
- Reuters
Google takes a gamble in class action jury trial over cell phone data use
June 4 (Reuters) - Class actions rarely go to trial, which is why a case against Google is proving to be an outlier. The tech giant is defending itself before a jury in Santa Clara County, California, superior court in an $800 million lawsuit, opens new tab by Android smartphone users who say Google misappropriates their cellphone data. A jury of eight women and four men was seated on Tuesday in what lawyers say is expected to be a three-to-four-week trial, with opening statements kicking off on Wednesday. The stakes are high, but the class, which includes an estimated 14 million Californians whose mobile devices use Google's Android operating system, is in some ways just an appetizer. The same plaintiffs lawyers from Korein Tillery; Bartlit Beck and McManis Faulkner are litigating a parallel case in San Jose federal court covering Android users in the other 49 states, with billions of dollars in alleged damages. The plaintiffs in court papers say that even when their phones are turned off, Google causes Android devices to surreptitiously send information over cellular networks 'for Google's own purposes,' including targeted digital advertising. These transfers improperly eat up data that users purchase from their mobile carriers, the plaintiffs allege. Google spokesperson José Castañeda said the claims 'mischaracterize standard industry practices that help protect users and make phones more reliable,' he told me. 'We look forward to making our case in court." A unit of Mountain View, California-based Alphabet, Google has a well-used playbook for settling class actions. Earlier this week, for example, the company agreed to pay $500 million to resolve shareholder litigation — a move that comes on the heels of a $50 million deal in May to resolve class-wide allegations of racial bias against Black employees and a $100 million payout in March to a proposed class of advertisers who claimed they were overcharged for clicks on ads. So why is Google taking this case to trial? In court papers, Google's outside counsel from Cooley argue that Android users incurred no actual losses, and that consumers consented to Google's so-called 'passive' data transfers via terms of service agreements and device settings. The lawyers also dispute the fundamental premise of the case: that cellular data allowances can be considered 'property' under California law and subject to conversion, a civil cause of action that involves taking a person's property without permission. When the 'rhetoric and hyperbole are set aside, Plaintiffs' theory is revealed as little more than a (misguided) product design claim — not wrongful conversion,' defense counsel wrote. The Cooley team, which includes Whitty Somvichian, Michael Attanasio, Max Bernstein and Carrie Lebel, declined comment. The plaintiffs sued Google in Santa Clara County Superior Court in 2019, asserting that they have a property interest in their cellular plans' data allowances, and that each quantum they pay for has a market value. They don't object to data transmissions when they're actively engaged with Google's apps and properties, like checking email or playing a game. But they say Google never told them it would avail itself of their cellular data when they weren't using their phones to send and receive a range of information on their usage. 'The upshot is that these phone users unknowingly subsidize the same Google advertising business that earns over $200 billion a year,' plaintiffs lawyer George Zelcs of Korein Tillery said via email. In addition to injunctive relief, the plaintiffs want Google to reimburse them for the value of the cellular data the company consumed. Per person, the amount is modest – 1 to 1.5 megabytes of data each day, the plaintiffs estimate. To put that in context, Americans used just over 100 trillion megabytes of wireless data in 2023, my Reuters colleagues reported. But with a class period dating back to 2016, the totals add up quickly. In court papers, Google lawyers sound almost incredulous at the amount of the claimed nationwide damages, which they say runs in the tens of billions — more than the $7.4 billion Perdue Pharma settlement for the opioid crisis, they note. "Plaintiffs cannot show remotely commensurate harm to the class," they wrote. In denying Google's motion for summary judgment in May, Judge Charles Adams allowed the plaintiffs' claim for conversion to go forward, ruling there are triable issues of material fact for jurors to decide. While Adams said no direct state law precedent exists as to whether cell phone data is property, he pointed to a decision, opens new tab by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year in the parallel federal class action, Taylor v Google. In that case, U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia DeMarchi in San Jose sided with Google and dismissed the complaint, opens new tab with prejudice in 2022, only to be reversed and remanded on appeal. The appellate panel in an unpublished decision ruled that the plaintiffs plausibly alleged they incurred damages when Google used their cellular data. Adams in a pre-trial order set some limits on what the lawyers will be allowed to argue to the jury. Plaintiffs may not suggest Google engages in "surveillance" of Android users, he wrote, or that the data transfers are a privacy violation. As for Google, Adams said, it 'must not present evidence or argument suggesting that this case is 'lawyer driven' or was 'invented' by Plaintiffs' counsel.'
